Recent Articles: Grand Theft Auto V

Just when you thought Grand Theft Auto V was ready to come out for the PC… Rockstar pulls it back in.

Today, the publisher announced that Grand Theft Auto V’s PC edition will miss its previously announced March 24 release date and will launch on April 14 instead. According to Rockstar, the delay is due to the fact that “a bit more time is needed to ensure that the game is as polished as possible, and to make certain that both Heists and the GTA Online experience are ready to roll out on day one for PC.”

But speaking of Heists, Rockstar has also announced that the Heat-inspired multiplayer mode will be ready to go for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on March 10. You can steal a glance at some new screenshots from GTA5’s Heists mode at the Rockstar Newswire.

Question… if only one major new title made its way to stores in January, should we be surprised when that game takes the top spot in the monthly sales rankings from the NPD Group? We probably shouldn’t be, and yet, I was still mildly surprised that Techland’s Dying Light was the best-selling game during 2015’s first four-week frame. It was followed by the two biggest titles from 2014… Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare at #2 and Grand Theft Auto V at #3.

Minecraft, coming in at #4, continues to rise even without the holiday shopping season to bolster its sales rank.

Every other title in the top ten seemed to land in roughly the same position it held in December. NBA 2K15 held onto the #5 spot while Super Smash Bros. For Wii U / Super Smash Bros. For 3DS dropped two places to #6. Far Cry 4 was lucky number seven once more while the #8 spot was taken by Madden NFL 15 (which dropped five spots from #3). The final two spots were once again held by Destiny (#9) and FIFA 15 (#10).

While the best-selling software list was relatively stable (and saw a 5% year-over-year increase in sales), the PS4 reigned supreme on the console charts after a one-month hiatus. This turn of events was most likely due to Microsoft’s temporary suspension of the Xbox One’s $50 discount (it was reinstated on January 18).

If you’re looking for the full top ten from January 2015 in list form, you can find it after the break. (more…)

Take-Two Interactive held their quarterly financial presentation yesterday and it looks the publisher is in a better position than ever before. In addition to reporting “strong financial results” for the quarter, Take-Two raised their yearly fiscal forecast due to the pending release of Evolve, Grand Theft Auto V on the PC, and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection.

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto V, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick announced that the company has shipped more than 45 million copies of the game to stores since its release last year, including more than ten million copies of the remastered PS4/Xbox One edition.

Zelnick didn’t discuss Rockstar’s future during the presentation or the question-and-answer period that followed, but he did say that Take-Two doesn’t believe in annualizing their big franchises. Specifically, he said, “[W]e think big tentpole releases should not be annualized except for sports titles because we think it’s valuable to build anticipation and because it takes some time to make the highest quality products in the business.”

To that end, Take-Two’s President, Karl Slatoff, reconfirmed that Borderlands 3 is in development at Gearbox. According to Slatoff, the game currently has no release date and it is being developed “specifically for next-gen consoles.” With the PS4 and Xbox One launching in 2013, this probably shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.

However, one thing we do know about Gearbox is that their team-based shooter, Battleborn, is still on track for a “Fiscal 2016″ release. That means it’ll launch sometime between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016… but it’s safe to assume that a late 2015/early 2016 release is much more likely.

Finally, Slatoff revealed that the publisher has numerous unannounced games in development. More details about those games will be released over the course of the year.

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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is on a roll. After being named the best-selling game for all of last year, the NPD Group also confirmed that it was the best-selling game of December as well. Activision’s latest military shooter also took the top spot in November, during its first month of release.

On the hardware side of things, the Xbox One once again was the best-selling console, besting the PS4 for a second month in a row. The console’s $50 price cut is really working for Microsoft and the company has decided to reinstate the discount beginning today, possibly on a permanent basis.

The full top ten for December 2014 can be found after the break. (more…)

The NPD Group has finished calculating the 2014 game sales in the United States and they’re ready to declare a winner. In 2014, gamers bought more copies of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare than any other game. The franchise actually bookended both ends of the list as Call of Duty: Ghosts tabulated enough 2014 sales to check in at #10. In between those two extremes, the list actually features plenty of familiar faces.

Last year’s best-selling game, Grand Theft Auto V, managed to heist the #4 spot thanks to good sales in the early half of the year and a PS4/Xbox One re-release in the Fall. Sports games occupied three spots in the top ten as Madden NFL 15 (#2), NBA 2K15 (#7), and FIFA 15 (#9) were all popular with players.

Gamers voted with their wallets and both of 2014’s budding megafranchises-in-the-making cracked the top ten. Destiny came in at #3 while Watch Dogs had to settle for the #8 spot.

All told, game software sales were down 13% in 2014 to $5.3 billion. That’s still an impressive chunk of change, but players are increasingly moving over to digital storefronts for the majority of their game purchases. The complete top ten from 2014 can be found after the break. (more…)

Grand Theft Auto V‘s PS4 and Xbox One re-release produced big sales for Rockstar Games along with a carload of critical praise. Unfortunately, the release of the highly-anticipated PC version has been delayed again. Previously scheduled to launch on January 27, the game will now compete against Bloodborne for the attention of gamers everywhere on March 24.

Writing on the Rockstar Newswire, the developer confirmed that the game needs a bit more polish before launch. More specifically, they said that Grand Theft Auto V “requires a few extra weeks of testing and polish to make it as good as can be.” As a way of apology, Rockstar included the first screenshots from the PC version of game in the same blog post, and they posted them in glorious 4K resolution.

Finally, the system requirements for Grand Theft Auto V have been released:

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Grand Theft Auto Online players will feel the Heat next year as Rockstar has announced that they’re finally ready to release the “Heists” update for Grand Theft Auto V‘s multiplayer component. “Heists,” a cooperative mode that requires each player to complete multiple objectives to complete the job, will be available in early 2015:

GTA Online Heists are coming early in 2015 – check out the new trailer for the four-player co-op mode for Grand Theft Auto Online that allows players to plan, prepare and execute multi-tiered Heists across Los Santos and Blaine County. These will require tight communication and coordination, with players taking on specified roles at each point to accomplish multiple objectives on the way to each Heist’s epic finale. Featuring new gameplay, new vehicles, new weapons, new clothing and much more.

Rockstar has been talking about the “Heists” update for a long time and Lead Mission Designer Imran Sarwar sat down with IGN this morning to talk about why the mode has taken a little more time than originally expected.

Activision’s Call of Duty franchise continues its reign atop the video game world by capturing the top spot in The NPD Group’s survey of November 2014’s best-selling games. It managed to hold off a strong challenge from Grand Theft Auto V, which received a huge boost from its new-generation re-release.

Nintendo had a very good month as Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and Super Smash Bros. For 3DS managed to sneak into the top three thanks to their combined might (The NPD Group considers them one game for the purposes of the monthly list). Further down the list, Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire shot to #5 while Pokemon: Omega Ruby owned the #7 spot (for some reason, the latest Pokemon release is considered two separate games by The NPD Group).

Ubisoft also had multiple games in the top ten, including Far Cry 4 at #6. Assassin’s Creed: Unity entered the list at #9, and while that’s an impressive achievement, it’s well below the top-three ranking attained by both Assassin’s Creed III and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag during their respective debut months.

Finally, Microsoft has plenty to crow about tonight as they’ve revealed to IGN that that the Xbox One outsold the PS4 for the first time.

The full top ten for November 2014 can be found after the break. (more…)